Rethink! Why growing a bookkeeping business requires being open to the possibility of change

I watched a great movie called Agora, based on the life of Hypatia who was born about 370 in Alexandria, Egypt. She was the first woman to make a substantial contribution to the development of mathematics. She was also a philosopher, astronomer and head of the Platonist school in Alexandria. She was revered by her peers and influential in the politics of the time (Wikipedia).

One of the concepts she grappled with in the movie related to astronomy. Other astronomers before her believed that the planets moved around the sun in a circle, but she felt that there was something missing and questioned that logic e.g. why did the sun feel warmer and then colder at different times during the year? After staying up night after night watching the stars and struggling with the answer she yelled out “Rethink!” She realised the only way she was going to be able to solve the problem was to put aside what others had taught before and look at the problem from a different perspective. If you love history and stories of influential women I would recommend this movie.

Roget’s Thesaurus says the meaning of the word rethink is – “To consider again, especially with the possibility of change”.

It made me think about how important it is to be open to the possibility of change when you are growing a bookkeeping business. Often we barrel along with an idea we are so focused on and attached to that we don’t notice signs along the way that may be offering us a different perspective which may be better. And sometimes it is pride that stops us from noticing.

For example, after a couple of years of writing the bookkeeping systems for my business I thought they were perfect. What a relief that I could finally put them to bed and get on with growing my business knowing the team were all following the same processes. I was convinced the information was clear and was best practice bookkeeping.

So convinced was I that I decided to create an instructional video so that every new bookkeeper who joined the team would just watch and apply the instructions. I set aside some time, put the headphones and mic on, opened the manuals to the first page and pressed record. I thought all I would need to do was read through the manuals and create screen shots of examples. It didn’t take me long to realise that the information was incomplete, had no logical order and some instructions were ambiguous. No wonder it took so long to train a new member of my team! For the first time I saw it from their perspective and I had to rethink the whole process.

I put the manuals aside and started again! That was about 10 years ago and each year I have rewritten the manuals and created new checklists incorporating suggestions from my team to make the information more comprehensive, easier to follow and give me guaranteed results. Each year I am convinced that it’s the best it’s ever going to be only to hear a question from the team or rethink a process which will improve the system. If I was too proud or too attached to my own way of doing things to be open to someone else’s ideas to improve my systems I would still be putting out spot fires in my business every day of the week.